Alien Base: The Evidence for Extraterrestrial Colonization of Earth – THE TUCUMCARI INCIDENT
On the night of 25 May 1995, the crew of an America West Boeing 757, Flight 564 (Cactus 564), en route from Tampa, Florida, to Las Vegas, Nevada, reported a large cigar-shaped craft, with a series of bright white lights along its side and very bright white lights on each end. The initial sighting, at 22.25 MDT, was made by Captain Eugene Tollefson and First Officer John Waller, when the plane was at 39,000 feet near Bovina, Texas, 60 nautical miles southeast of Tucumcari, New Mexico. The unidentified object appeared to be moving at about 300 to 350 k.p.h. at an altitude of between 30,000 and 35,000 feet, and came to within five miles of the Boeing.
The following are extracts from radio exchanges between Waller (564), and others, and Albuquerque Air Route Control Center (ACC), transcribed by Graham Sheppard, an airline captain and principal associate of mine, who gave me a copy of the tapes. I have also used some information from the definitive report by the astronomer and leading UFO investigator, Walter Webb: 564: Center, Cactus 564.
ACC: Cactus 564, go ahead. 564: Yeah, off to our three-o-clock, there’s some strobes out there. Did you get what it is?
ACC: . . A don’t know what it is right now. There is a restricted area that’s used by the military out there during the day time. 564: Yeah, it’s pretty odd . . . did you paint that object at all on your radar?
ACC: Cactus 564, no I don’t, and talking with three or four guys around here, no one knows what this is . . . What’s the altitude about? 564: I dunno, probably around 30,000 or so, and its strobe, er, is going counterclockwise, and the length is, er, unbelievable .
Albuquerque Center contacts Cannon Air Force Base (AFB), New Mexico: ACC: Hey, do you guys know if there was anything like a tethered balloon or anything released . . . ?
AFB: Er, no. We haven’t heard nothin’ about it.
ACC: OK. Guy at 39,000 says he’s seen something at 30,000; that the length is unbelievable and it has a strobe on it.
AFB: Uh, huh.
ACC: This is not good [laughs]. OK.
AFB: What does that mean?
Communications between Cactus 564 and Albuquerque resume: ACC: . . . You still see it? 564: Negative. Back when we initially spotted it, it was between the weather [typically cumulo nimbus thunderstorm cloud] and us, and when there’s lightning you could see a dark object and, er, it was pretty eerie- looking . . . First time in 15 years I’ve ever seen anything like this. It’s probably military . . .
Later, when another aircraft had spotted the mystery object, Albuquerque tried to obtain information from North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) at its Western Air Defense Sector Headquarters (call sign ‘Bigfoot): ACC: . . . Around Tucumcari, New Mexico, north of Cannon, I had a couple of aircraft report something 300 to 400 feet long, cylindrical in shape with a strobe, flashing, off to the end of it.
NOR: . . . Er, we don’t have anything going on up there that I know of . . .
You all serious about this?
ACC: Yeah, he’s real serious about it . . .
NOR: . . . How long did he think it was?
ACC: He said it was 300-to 400-foot long.
NOR: Holy smoke! . . . I wonder if any of our aerostats [tethered blimps] got loose or something. But we don’t have any aerostats there . . .
According to NORAD’s Directorate of Operations and Space Control Center, no space debris re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere during the period in question.
Could this object have been a genuine spacecraft? In a letter to Walter Webb, NORAD explained that ‘Uncorrelated Event Reports’ (UERs) ‘are classified Secret until downgraded by proper authority. The term “UFO” has not been used by this headquarters since the “Blue Book” was permanently closed . . :